Columbus, Ohio indie rock band Trying have released new single “This Is Not a Disco Pt. 2” after premiering via Z Tapes Spring 2020 benefit compilation. The track introduces the band’s sophomore album, This Is Not a Disco, out July 10, with a call for pushing through the struggle that admits to having few answers of how to proceed forward. “You can’t just forget your trauma / I can’t just right your wrongs / sometimes you say that I’m your savior / but there are no heroes here,” band leader Cameron Carr sings. Fittingly, the track pairs jubilant rhythms with more intimate, stripped down instrumentation, like a lost new wave song reborn in some Midwestern basement.
Formed by Carr to bring life to bedroom recordings, Trying is the sort of unusual and tightly-held passion project that America’s flyover regions have become known for fostering. Their 2018 debut, Leave and Never Come Back, earned praise and multiple Album of the Year nods from a community of passionate music bloggers.
2019 saw the band introducing a follow-up to Leave and Never Come Back with two EPs: I Won’t Let You Lose the Rhythm—a lighter, dreamy set of songs—and I Just Can’t Feel the Rhythm—which gave a noisy, almost post-punk intensity to the band’s gauzy bounce. 2020 brings the project’s full-length climax: This Is Not a Disco, a consideration of struggle, in ourselves, in others, and in the attempt to help. The album merges the light and dark of the two preceding EPs into expressionistic indie pop.
Trying’s lineup is completed by guitarist/bassist Brady Costigan, drummer Zayn Dweik, and clarinetist/glockenspielist Laura Lenhart. Carr home records the band’s music, predominantly in his basement and bedroom.
